The Abduction
by barbecuedphoenix
Summary: Some days, it's hard to tell if Valkyon is truly oblivious to the concept of romance, or only putting up a front. Either way, Sofimon resolves to be patient in winning him over. Until one mission brings them to the ruins of a naiad village deep in the mountains, where a relic from the past gives her an idea of how to snag his heart. First, she has to lure him away from his work.
1. Chapter 1: The Spring in the Mountains

This story was the first request from my blog that featured a custom OC- graciously lent by Mentacomchocolate on Tumblr back in July 9, 2017 to celebrate the blog's 100-followers milestone. Her request was a simple one: a sweet NSFW one-shot that features Valkyon being coaxed out of his shell and courted by her guardian Sofimon.

This was also the first story that expanded into a multi-chapter, replete with a new faery species and civilization created just for the setting. Which was not, er, actually part of the request. But in my defense, I had no experience writing a sweet-and-sexy romance up to that point... so I had to borrow an ancient Greek myth (plus one shameless reference to a modern movie) to create the backbone of the story. From there, anthropological nerding and world-building instincts took over; they're relentless forces.

 _But..._ the story still served what was requested. Read on to find out.

* * *

 **Chapter 1: The Spring in the Mountains**

The ancient flagstones echoed with the clank of her boots as they stepped onto and off the two hundredth step of the hidden passage, snaking through the mountainside like a vein under the skin. On cue, the nub of chalk in Sofimon's hand flashed twice across the wall on her right, raising two ghost-white streaks along the wave-curl of basalt chips.

Two hundred steps, each ten inches tall on average. That currently placed her at about one hundred and sixty-six feet above the valley, where she first discovered that innocuous door all but hidden by two season's worth of brown-baked summer moss. Now she grinned at her mark on the dark mosaic on the wall, polished chips undulating silver-and-black through the gloom like hydra scales, tasting her sweat at the corners of her lips. A climb this high could only mean one thing for a professional explorer: pay dirt.

Behind her came the rhythmic wheeze that marked her partner's progress up the passage. Which had been climbing _up_ without break just below the spine of the mountain for the last half hour, stringing together the caves caught under the earth's skin.

"Sofi…!" Kero's voice echoed through the tunnel like a plea, finally pinching her smile into wince from how battered he sounded. "For the love of all that's good… please _tell me_ you found the exit…!"

Her chestnut-brown eyes darted again, guiltily, to the twin stripes on the wall. Once upon a time, she would have shared Kero's agony. But a full year in the Obsidian Guard had re-forged her into a swordswoman with piston-like legs, which was one of the better gifts to give an adventurer in the faery realm.

"We _are_ pretty high up… But it couldn't be much further, I think…!" she called back, throwing a smile into her voice that ricocheted down the stone steps.

Then she turned to squint up the passage, at the lightening gloom that wasn't all caused by the glow of her lantern, and sniffed the air. Hints of summer green bloomed on the roof of her mouth. Her tawny lips moved into a broader grin, which lingered as the sodden unicorn—his tunic and poncho joined seamless on his shoulders with sweat– finally caught up with her. Their circles of lamplight shivered and merged over the points of her scaled boots.

"I know neither of us expected a climb like this…" Sofimon began, catching Kero gently by the elbow as he reeled again, "but look on the bright side: whatever is hidden this high above the main complex _must_ be something special."

"Well I'm glad… you're so… _eager_ … about this expedition…" the head archivist returned, sagging against the wall. He drew a limp handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow again, then the bridge of his nose where his glasses were sliding perilously. "… …But _Black Dog's Bane_ … hundred-step stairways are why I like studying history in the library… Who would have known that the naiads are fitness-fiends?"

Sofimon laughed and gestured around the narrow passage, the opposite wall just an inch shy from meeting the sweep of her fingertips. "You're saying that when we're on the lip of an ancient bathhouse complex?"

"When the texts said 'bathhouse', I was hoping for a place with a nice little gymnasium next to the swimming pools. On flat ground. With a massage center and dining spot nearby. Wishful thinking, I guess," Kero grimaced, finally peeling his poncho over his head, and catching it on the point of his horn over halfway through. "Oh, _blast it_ …"

Sofimon bit her lip to keep from giggling as the lanky unicorn finally wriggled himself free, glasses askew, and coughed. "… _Anyway._ Not that there's anything wrong with a little workout from time to time… but it would be nice if there're also some clues waiting for us at the end of this climb. That door didn't look like it was used excessively though, even when this place was still teeming with visitors…"

Her smile finally dropped. "Well we won't know the truth while we're still in the cave." The steel toe of her boot clinked from the next worn step. "But if you want, I can scout ahead…?"

"No, no… I offered to come with you when you found the door; I'll see this through. And get more exercise, I guess…" the archivist sighed, tying his limp poncho around his waist.

"The dungeon-stairs in HQ will be child's play for you after this," Sofimon joked as she turned up the stairs again, at half-pace this time. Kero grumbled something incomprehensible at her back as she resumed the count in her head, her free fingers tracing the nigh-invisible curls of the mosaic running along the walls in peak-and-valley waves, cool to the touch like river stones.

Here was another reason why two hundred-step stairways still hadn't dimmed her spirits. To her human eyes, it was as if she was transported to a patch of Classical Greece from perhaps 2300 years ago. But here in the faery realm, this archaic bathhouse complex—no doubt carved from the rock by the last nymphs of ancient Grecian folklore– had been deserted a little less than two years ago. The past still walked here.

Their team arrived here three days ago, searching for clues on the whereabouts of the regional naiad queen, to confirm if she too fell prey to the environmental changes and scourge of madness that rolled across the Continent on the destruction of the Grand Crystal. So far, from the state of the main bathhouse complex they left two hundred steps below, once said to be the jewel of the queen's many spa villages, the outlook wasn't promising. Whereas the fully-aquatic nereids and oceanids managed to survive the immediate fallout—buffered by the sea itself from the chain reaction of ecological disasters resulting from the malevolent flux of the maana cycle—no one could quite guess what happened to the naiads, who straddled that curious boundary between water and land.

Though related, the naiads were more amphibious than the nereids and oceanids. According to all the literature she read, they were equipped with two legs capable of walking on land. But with those, they developed a way of 'sprinting' through their native marshes, lakes, and rivers that rivaled water skaters and river eels in speed, aided by the push of their webbed digits and the fins sprouting from their long, wiry limbs. Most remarkably, they had the ability to switch between breathing water and dry air like a lungfish. During the perilous dry seasons, when their native waters shrank to a fraction of their size, older naiads voluntarily migrated onto dry land in a ritual 'exile' for months at a time (or even permanently, for the few mavericks who chose to leave the waters for good), returning only when the streams and lakes swelled again from rain and snow melt past the point of dangerous overcrowding. Naiads, after all, were a notoriously territorial people; they almost never migrated from lake to stream once water levels dropped, and food and oxygen levels grew scarce, instead defending the waters where their mothers were born even from land. But each transition from gills to lungs and back again required a slow, careful period of adaptation in marshlands. Or eventually—as naiad culture advanced and discovered that swamps were unnecessarily scarce and fraught with predators waiting to drag off asphyxiated naiads– in constructed bathhouses, such as the one their team was exploring now.

For centuries, these spring-side spa villages were the naiads' toll-gates and highways between land and water, cross-species trading houses, temples for the rites of passage, ritual exile, and return, forums where returning and departing 'exiles' exchanged news, hydrotherapy centers for holistic healing, exercise, and acclimation, and pleasure houses all rolled into one. As Kero had succinctly put it when they arrived, these bathhouse complexes were the cornerstones of modern naiad civilization. So if there was ever a clue to a sudden influx of madness and mutation in their society, they would be found here.

Though if there was anything the past three days proved, it was that theory and practice could sit worlds apart. Sofimon was no archaeologist (ex-philosophy major, in fact; there was no end to the jokes on how to make money with _that_ back where she came from). But what she was sure of was this: the naiads had left this place suddenly. Bone combs, algae-slicked needles, rancid perfume amphorae, fused fish-oil lanterns, chipped ceramic platters, spotted mirrors, and mold-eaten scrolls were strewn around this community bathhouse exactly as they were when the halls still rang with footsteps. Even a rookie could see that it looked like the entire complex got up as one in the middle of dinner, and vanished into the mountain air.

Her fingers skimmed the dark waves of stone chips and suddenly beached against warped wood, startling her from her count. Her next foot rose and fell hard through a step that didn't exist, cutting through the faint sunbeams crossing the black flagstones and jarring her leg to her knee. And Sofimon's trajectory swung her, stumbling, around the final turn of the passage, out of the deep shadow of the doorway and onto a stone promenade raised high above the forest of cypress, plane, and willow, crouched twisted on the mountainside.

Late afternoon light lanced her eyes gold, warming the skin of her hand as she whipped it up to shield her gaze. The air gurgled with the rush of cataracts and the octave-long trills of feral familiars, whistling unseen from the distant green above and below.

When Kero stumbled into her back and winced in his throat, his glasses catching with a clink on the back of her helm, Sofimon obligingly stepped out and to the side of the rectangular, Pi-shaped doorway. "Two hundred and sixty-nine steps," she announced helpfully, bowing a little to present the view to her partner. Kero winced again, and crab-walked gingerly past her to the edge of the wall.

She let him go, taking in the bright mountain air and bringing her dazzled eyes down past the promenade wall to the bend of the first spring, steaming and bouncing down the green-slicked boulders in white arcs to the groove of the ravine below. Far below, the sharp angles and concentric squares of the bathhouse complex rose from the wild summer green like a granite stamp, half-folded improbably up the side of the mountain to catch two whiplash white streams in a series of pools. If she squinted, she could even glimpse the walnut-brown points of their tents, clustered between the fluted pillars of the southern courtyard. Where she knew the third and final member of their party was packing up their notes and recovered artifacts for the return journey tomorrow, with his systematic, straight-faced precision.

He had declined to join her today when she loped back to camp with news of the hidden door, instead citing Kero as the better researcher. That was Valkyon's polite way of admitting he was pessimistic.

"Holy Black Dog!"

" _What?_ What is it?" Sofimon called out, wresting her eyes away from their distant camp, her free hand automatically grasping for the hilt of her broadsword slung across her back.

Kero was standing on the northern corner of the promenade, both hands planted on the wall and staring fixedly down the other side. From the way his head and neck were jutting eight inches over the edge of the wall, shoulders scrunched, whatever he was seeing didn't seem life-threatening. Yet.

She crossed the promenade with the long, loping strides that earned her nickname in the Obsidian Guard, and looked down past the lip of the wall. And her expression stopped setting the better example.

The hidden cataract stood at the height of about three men where the hot spring plunged down a natural precipice behind the turn of the wall, its rich, iron-laced waters still steaming gently in the afternoon air. At the corner of the cataract closest to the promenade, a rectangular pool had been created by artfully walling off both the riverbank and the rest of the cascade with boulders, forcing just one meter of mineral-rich spring water to plummet down into the tiny canal, collecting, deepening, and warming further into a serene pool of water caught between the natural spring and the wall, before the water continued its journey down the mountain over a shallow lip cut on the far wall of the pool. A steep stairway cut through the wall they stood on, zigzagging straight down to the brilliant, dappled water of the pool. Viridian algae lined the stone in a thin girdle where it met the spring water, before climbing up the corner of the wall in mottled blooms, and escaping over the slope of the divided cataract itself, where the headiest clouds of steam had moistened and worn at the rock for centuries.

But what drew Sofimon's stare was the kaleidoscopic colors shivering out from the pool. Each of its sides had been leveled by hand, then inlaid with pale, moon-washed river stones, clusters of technicolored quartz, malachites, and agates, obsidian chips that glistened sharp through the rushing waters like tiny arrows caught below the current, and even warm flashes of what looked like tiny gold nuggets. All set into a five-sided mosaic of what could only be a lost naiad epic: the crazy-limbed, finned, half-naked dancers—both standing and swimming– locked into their dance under the spring waters that rippled and swirled over them ceaselessly.

Kero whistled soundlessly from her side. "…Your hunch was right, all right, Sofi. This _must_ have been the naiad queen's private bathing pool. Spared from looters– thank the Oracle– by how invisible the only viable entrance is to this place."

"See? It never hurts to be optimistic."

They clambered down the stairs, discovery winding up new springs in their knees. Kero stopped four steps shy of the simmering waters that smelled like a forge, fanning himself again with the collar of his tunic, his glasses fogging over from the steam. But Sofimon went right to the water itself, dipping and swirling one hand through the warmth rushing by, just a few degrees above the temperature of her hand. Her wide eyes wandered across the mural: over the twist of limbs and unearthly bodies, both male and female, profiled in nail-sized chips of glass, gem, and river rock along the walls and the floor of the pool.

It wasn't that deep: no more than three feet perhaps. A smooth, enameled bench lined three of the sides, with naiads cleverly depicted stretching themselves above and below the edge of the bench, reaching for their partners reclining across the divide.

Long moments passed, in the sweep of warmth between her fingers and the flicker of glassy lights across the surface of the water, before Kero's somber voice reached her. "There doesn't seem to be anything here either, unfortunately… But the least we could do before leaving is seal off the door leading to this pool. Guarantee that no looters will stumble across this in the future. Because it _is_ a work of art… We might easily be the last ones to see it—in this state at least—for who knows how long. Once we get back to the camp, I'll ask Valkyon to take a look at the door."

At last, Sofimon retracted her hand from the water, sighed, and rose to her feet. "That would be a good idea," she admitted, sweeping aside the black, sweat-slicked bangs under her helmet, iron-tinged water dripping into the cup of her palm.

Still, her eyes continued to rove along the lines of naiads frozen on the faces of the pool: trying to tease apart the braids of impossible limbs through the waters, even as split-second waves were sliced apart by the sunlight, glinting off the spots of gold from an upturned wrist, an opened thigh, a head tossed back with wide-awake eyes leafed in gold. And with a jolt, she suddenly realized what she was seeing. Across all four sides of the mural, there was a particular pattern to the shapely legs scissored together, twined knee around knee; the press of bodies married waist-to-waist; the curve and bend of backs that brought erect, straining breasts and lit eyes pointing to the sky.

Well. Now she could see why this pool was perched two hundred and sixty-nine steps above the village.

The first giggle broke through her teeth, then through the seal of her lips, and past her hand as it clamped hard over her mouth. Kero, mercifully, blinked at her instead of at the pool, his misted glasses half-wrapped in the edge of his tunic.

"What's so funny?"

"… _Nothing_ ," Sofimon spluttered out, still grinning helplessly behind her hand. She forced herself to look away from the twined legs and arching bodies stamped across the sides of the pool. "…Do you, uh, want a rendering of the pool, by any chance?"

Kero didn't so much as pause. "Of course. We would love to have a watercolor of this in the archives. That is, only if you don't mind taking some time this afternoon to make a painting, while there's still light. I can ask Valkyon to hold off on blocking the passage–"

" _No!_ Actually, uh… let him work on the door while I start painting. I, uh, don't want to have to walk all the way to camp. Just to let him know he's free to block up the passage. You see?"

Now the archivist was squinting at her, his voice returning slow and incredulous. "…If that's what you want, sure. Though I'm not sure why this is an issue now, after all those stairs you climbed with barely a sweat."

"Look at me: I _did_ sweat. I'm not exactly made of iron, Kero," Sofimon quipped quickly, smiling her thanks. With enough pinch in her cheeks to encourage him to stop talking. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Anyway, since the painting is going to take a bit of time… will you, uh, be all right if I start here and now? I swear, all these details the naiads put it…"

"True," the archivist sighed, glancing once at the pool before he slipped his glasses back on. "No expense was spared for their queen, apparently… All right, feel free to set up, Sofi, and thanks for doing this for us. I'll see you back at the camp. Before it gets too dark, you hear?"

"I'll try my best," Sofimon chuckled, avoiding his eyes as she slung off her satchel and rummaged one-handed through it.

Kero was already halfway up the stairs when she found her codex, scribbled a quick note in charcoal through the back page, ripped it free, and hastily folded it into sixteenths. She loped after him, two steps at a time. "Oh, Kero, wait! I'm sorry about this. But do you, uh, mind taking this to Valkyon?" The next laugh broke out of her, reflexively, "…It looks like I might need more watercolors than what I'm carrying now. It's the queen's private pool; we ought to do it justice, right?"

The unicorn took the finger-sized wad of notepaper with a smile. "Of course, Sofi. Miiko couldn't have known what a good idea it was to send you with us here."

Her grin slipped out well before she could stop it. "No, she couldn't have."

* * *

You'll have to find out in the next chapter to learn what Sofi has planned. But naiads aren't exactly innocent souls in ancient Greek myth.

 _Disclaimers:_

\- No naiads have been featured in the game yet. And they're probably not going to be featured as a matriarchal, amphibious river folk with lungfish traits and a knack for hydro-engineering. That requires a pretty severe bio-anthropology nerd as the writer. *ahem*

\- Nereids and oceanids were the marine counterparts of the freshwater naiads, occupying the Aegean Sea and the wider global ocean respectively. In this story though, I actually mean to portray them as Grecian mermaid tribes. Alas _,_ this story is not about them.

\- The hot spring featured in this story is actually based on one outdoor thermal pool in the famous Pozar Spa in Greece. (Though the original lacks naughty murals.) The naiad bathhouse complex is inspired by ancient Greek and Roman thermal baths, leaning a little more to the latter than the former.

\- Sofimon is originally meant to be a simple Obsidian Guard member with a penchant for books, philosophy, and bad puns. Her occupation as an explorer and watercolor artist were my additions to the character, working off her natural zest for knowledge and her brawn. (Although she _is_ confirmed by her creator to be a pretty bad liar.)


	2. Chapter 2: The Naiad

**Chapter 2: The Naiad**

The sliver of chalk in her fingers had been whittled down to the width of a _centavo_ , when it finally splintered with a crack just as Sofimon was tracing another triskelion around the arrow on the final step of the naiad queen's pool.

She grimaced at her fingertips now frosted white, dropped the chalk bits, and settled for smudging them against the stone with both hands. One-by-one, the three-headed spirals dancing around the arrow misted over into clouds along the black flagstones.

Considering the distances that that nub of chalk endured this evening, she probably shouldn't have been surprised. But the end of the chain was all but ruined.

Sofimon squinted at the newly-christened cloud mural under the glow of her lantern, shrugged her approval, then rose and cast its wedge of light further up the stairs half-hidden by dusk. Bone-white arrows and ashen waves flashed from the basalt steps, like stitches on the skin of the rock, before curving out of her sight. Trailing further back– she knew—through the archway, streaking in thin streams across the walls of the passage and the caves in-between like frozen meteor tails against the dark, and ending (or starting, depending on point of view) just a foot past the ancient door that Valkyon would have begun working on an hour and a half ago. With a little invitation scrawled onto the flagstones in her hand: 'Follow Me'.

She had resisted writing anything else. A person with Valkyon's mindset always preferred concrete proof over a written promise. And what could she write on those flagstones, really, to explain his final destination if he followed that trail of chalk arrows tonight up the mountain?

The last arrowhead was pointing directly between her bare feet. Above, she wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing. If she didn't count the wild violets peeping purple and saffron out of her dark hair, hastily plucked from the bluff just north of the pool.

Her pulse was still thundering in the dip of her collarbone to a shallow, restless timpani-beat as she automatically wiped her hands on her thighs. And then remembered that her tri-paneled pan'eva skirt was folded neatly halfway up the stairs. She grimaced down at her handiwork: sepia thighs now streaked with gray, looking a lot like misapplied _Vodum_ ash. Hardly sexy. She settled for wiping her fingers clean against the wall instead. One bare foot rubbed reflexively over the toes of the other.

The summer air pulled at her nakedness, prickling the skin around her nipples, her navel, and the cleft of her legs whenever the breeze changed. Tonight was a risk taken a full league above anything she tried for her lovers in the past. But then again, none of them were anything like Valkyon. For good and bad reasons.

To start with the good… he was absolutely worth appearing naked before. And not just because a nude woman standing in his path with a smile wouldn't pull anything close to gawk out of him. Likely nothing more than the slightest rise of his eyebrows, for courtesy's sake. He had perfected that gentleman's composure without ever knowing it.

Which brought her to one of the great flaws of his one-in-a-million personality: there were several reasons why the phrase 'court Valkyon' was considered a paradox in El.

Proof A: her stoic, grizzled captain received a three-second heart attack on the night she first dared to call him 'cute'. To his face. She had to pour him another flagon of beer before he started speaking normally to her again.

Proof B: it took her seven more months of careful joking, little favors, and opportune 'off-duty exercises' with him before enough softness crept into the corners of his eyes whenever he saw her, and she could pose that requisite question with a clear conscience. And his reaction that evening was to ask without blinking where she would like to "go out with him". Followed by a droll assurance—at seeing her expression wilt—that his schedule on the day she had mind was light, so she didn't need to worry about imposing on him if it was a personal errand she needed his help with.

One of Valkyon's locker room names in the Obsidian Guard was 'The Sword-Test Mannequin'. That evening, Sofimon felt close to agreeing with the other ladies.

In any case, her captain had proved without knowing that a full-frontal assault was never going to work on him, in love or war. Which left- really- only one option for Sofimon: a war of attrition. A slow, gradual wearing down of that dangerously-literal mindset and the hidden, fired-iron defenses of his heart. With affection. With presence. With tact. With patience and resourcefulness. And a complete lack of judgment for his moments of obliviousness. Some people were worth waiting for.

Valkyon may have started off by catalyzing the mother of all awkward courtship moments… but she was finally seeing some pay-off in these last two months. Not in their routines together, but in the subtleties.

Such as the longer silences that crept into his piercing, amber-bright stare during their weekend beers under the cherry tree. The change from 'Sofimon' to 'Sofi'. The new softness around the set of his lips whenever she read out another book Ykhar loaned him in the evenings outside the forge: him leaning back into the bench, tired eyes closed, his heat-seared face taking in the evening air, muscular thighs falling apart naturally as he stretched his legs out on the bricks of the courtyard, and listened to her veer (often) into new tangents from what she was reading for both of them. The careful, concerned way he now asked if she still felt any stiffness whenever he massaged her back after a spar, to which she always answered in the negative and kept her face turned away. Because letting him know that she was already damp between her thighs when his huge, powerful hands—like islands of heat on their own—traveled down the length of her back, kneading her from neck to hips in firm, slow, reaching strokes… well, that might give him another heart attack.

The feelings were there. She was sure of it. But what he needed now was a change of routine. A chance to grow comfortable exploring the next level of possibilities between them. A catapult-shot out of normalcy to test these new waters with her, literally and figuratively.

Not to mention that Valkyon _really_ needed a bath by this point. Especially after his last reconnaissance this morning: rappelling down a pitch-dark, forty-foot deep, algae-slicked well that smelled like the den of a _minhocão_. Bless the dear man for his dedication: he recovered a small trove of offerings dumped into the well right around the time that the complex was abandoned. But not even Floppy was willing to get close to him after he toweled the ichor-black mud off his skin.

So the moment she found the naiad queen's pool this afternoon—its waters steaming gently under the first of the ancient hot spring's rapids, each side lined with a cavalcade of naiads flirting, preening, and twisting together in the throes of jewel-bright ecstasy—two ongoing quests met with a satisfying click in Sofimon's mind. And she knew that she would have to do justice to the cheeky artisans of this spa village before the night was done, and the pool was sealed off for good from the world's eyes.

She only hoped Kero wouldn't try to check on her if she returned to camp _a little_ late tonight.

The evening air—warmed to the ghost-touch of skin from the simmering hot spring—kissed the bare skin of her back, and slipped between her thighs to breathe over the tender folds of her womanhood as Sofimon laid her lantern on the final step, and eased herself down to the submerged bench. Deep warmth closed around her feet and calves, every pore on every square-inch of her skin opening and prickling from the unprecedented heat; she held herself steady, absorbing the temperature of the waters until the taut muscles of her legs and the bones below seemed to dissolve. An instinctive sigh left her, warm flush rolling up her legs and stomach, and she took another step off the bench to the bottom of the pool. The rushing water closed warm over her hips, rising to just below her navel as her feet found the gently-molded river stones and tumbled jewels lining the pool's base, glowing through the new calluses on her soles with the low heat of centuries.

Chalk dust rose in thin streams through the dusk-darkened spring as she rubbed at her thighs, before vanishing over the far lip of the pool as the water continued its headlong rush down the ravine. Sofimon continued massaging her skin absently, thumbs sweeping inward over the sensitive flesh near her womanhood at the thought of what lay ahead tonight, while she gazed around the walls of the pool. Ancient faces in profile peered back at her with eyes inhumanly-large, flashing onyx and gold in the light of her lantern perched on the stair step. Still more naiads were lolling against their partner's necks or gazing skyward, ebon hair spiraling out through the river current on the mural, backs bending, bare breasts cresting the waves of their spring.

She had to bite her lip again to keep from laughing. If only Kero knew what they were looking at this afternoon. If this _was_ a scene from a naiad epic stamped across the faces of the pool, then they had seriously underestimated the spirit of the vanished river folk. Once upon a time, they must have been _memorable_ hosts.

Her eyes soon fell on a strange figure stretched out on his side, high up on one wall of the pool. A young man—not one of those reclusive male naiads, from the lack of gill-ruffs and gold-rimmed eyes, but from a people she didn't recognize— lying naked, supple as a Bronze Age athlete, and posed as though asleep on the mural's riverbank with an ewer by his side. Except his free fingers were resting tellingly over the generous curve of his member, and his face turned at a strange angle to look further down the wall, eyes lidded but wide awake.

A strange suspicion forming in her mind, Sofimon edged closer, curling her knees onto the side bench and hunkering down until the spring waters lapped around her shoulders. She pressed her face against the stone wall to peer through the water past the youth's reflection, and then started laughing to herself. Just under the wavelets of the spring, an answering female face was staring back at him, with the wide, gold-gilt eyes and angelfish fins of a naiad, her breasts high and erect as she arched up from the depths of the mural's 'river', one slim, webbed hand reaching out to pull herself onto the riverbank. Or perhaps to pull him under.

So. The Greeks weren't entirely wrong about the naiads. They celebrated their bodies through medicine and art, reveled in the rites of fertility… and had a healthy appetite for men on regular days too. And not just from their own kind.

Her cheek was still pressed against the wall, grinning at what her ancestors would have called a blatant kidnapping attempt, when a voice called out from twenty feet overhead.

"Enjoying yourself already?"

Sofimon jerked out of the water like a cork, splashed two steps back, and craned her neck up at the promenade. Where the unmistakable broad shoulders of her captain were silhouetted against the fire-touched evening sky. Perched on the wall next to his elbow was a second lantern, beaming down at her like another eye in the dusk.

"Maybe…?" she called back, laughing, arms instinctively rising to fold over her breasts. Before dropping a few inches lower once she remembered that this was _Valkyon_ after all. "The painting is already finished. So I thought… why not take a soak while there's still light?"

"Not even chalk drawings can keep you busy?" She could sense that trademarked dry smile overhead.

"Well… I ran out of drawing space," she replied, gesturing at the final step rising from the edge of the pool, etched in white, with the last, cloud-rimmed arrowhead pointing to her. "Why not see for yourself?"

His armored boots clanked down the stairs to a tempo that punctuated the triple-time beat of the pulse in her throat. Once Valkyon rounded the final corner, her smile peaked: in his free arm were the ewer, towels, sponge, and cake of soap that her note asked him to fetch—discreetly—on his way up the ruins. He was also carrying that tiny, dry smile she knew, as his boot swallowed up the final chalk marker that brought him to her.

"I needed to check on you anyway," he remarked, without so much as a raised eyebrow at her nakedness. "The passage has been blocked up, mostly. There's still room for you and I to get through." A quick, cursory glance of his tawny eyes across the jeweled pool, the waters now mixed with lead and fire from the evening sky. "...Though if you'd like to stay here for a bit longer, that's fine. I could always finish up later tonight." And with that he stooped, depositing the ewer, soap, and towels on the final step next to her lantern. "I'll save some dinner for you back at camp."

Sofimon's smile finally dropped as her captain turned on his heel and climbed back up the stone steps. Maybe 'The Mannequin' wasn't such a bad name for him after all.

"Valk, that extra towel isn't for me," she called out. "You know that… right?"

At her voice, Valkyon froze in midstride, one boot halfway off a scuffed chalk arrow. When he turned at last, it was with a strange, split-second clench of the muscle in his jaw. Gone as soon Sofimon realized that it was nervousness.

"I had my suspicions," he began, his voice giving away as much as his expression now. Which was to say, nothing. Then the side of his mouth broke into another faint, droll smile. "Don't worry: I'll give myself a good scrub once I'm finished with the passage tonight. I'm aware that you and Kero prefer if I sleep on one side of the camp these days."

Sofimon winced, fingers biting into the insides of her elbows. "That's— that's not what I meant. Really…"

He was still smiling at her, lightly. "Your gesture is appreciated, all the same. I'll see you back at the camp."

And her captain was over halfway up the stairs by the time Sofimon realized what that cryptic smile meant.

 _He was distracting her_. Well. Once this was all over, she'd have one or two choice things to say to those Obsidian ladies in the locker-room.

Her feet flashed out of the water and over the basalt stairs, silver puddles shivering along the steps in her wake. One arm caught his: slipping easy through the crook of his elbow, her skin shining dark and slick as an eel in his halo of lamplight as it suddenly jerked, and swayed over the step they were perched on. The deep, spicy warmth of his musk wrapped around her.

"You've brought everything I asked, followed a trail of kiddish scrawls almost a quarter of a mile up a mountain without complaining… and you're about to climb down again without so much as a break? Without asking why I wanted you to come see this pool for yourself?"

His eyes flicked once, over the top of her head, to the crash and roiling hiss of the waterfall. Still noncommittal. "…Well I can see why we need to block up the passage before we leave."

A frown rippled once over her face, and was pushed away. "Yes, exactly. Who knows how long it would be before this place comes alive again? We might be the last ones to see this pool while it's still in this state. And you're not at all interested in knowing why this section of the spring was saved just for the queen and her consorts?" When he kept his silence, she quirked her head to the side. "…Have you never tried bathing in a hot spring before?"

"It hasn't come up."

Her smile was returning. "You really don't know what you're missing, then. Did you know that a typical balneotherapy back in the day involved twenty-one different baths, over two weeks? They claimed that it was only under wild, constantly-running, mineral-rich waters that the healing effects of the river would settle into the body. Patients used to visit these springs to treat rheumatism, arthritis, sprains and fractures, damage on peripheral nerves, and all sorts of skin ailments: bathing with an empty stomach, then resting once every three days where it was warm and protected from the winds."

"Not surprising then that we found a full-sized medical clinic on the corner of the village."

Was he set on making this difficult? "Well I also read that waters this strong will work wonders on soothing pulled muscles and frayed tempers," Sofimon grasped, her moist fingers tracing lightly over the vein on his hard bicep, the dusky bud of her nipple brushing against his forearm. "And for removing mud from hard-to-reach places. It's not all medicinal." Now she offered a tiny smile, angled up at his poker-face. "We've been crawling up and down these ruins for three days without break, and there's another week-long hike back to El in the morning. Why not take this last night to relax?"

Her captain kept his silence. But those golden eyes were searing through hers, the pulse in his muscular neck leaping.

"Just for an hour, just for tonight. With me. Because we haven't had a chance to share so much as a drink together since we started traveling. And I miss it."

With excruciating slowness, Valkyon's lamp descended onto the step, the iron handle ringing faint against the stone.

Her arm twined tight through his, the moist summer air shivering the droplets stuck across her naked skin, slipping slick from her hair and the curve of her lips to dampen his clothes. And Sofimon pulled him down to the water.

* * *

Abduction complete (so to speak). But knowing Valkyon, he's still going to put up a fight even in when in deep peril. The next chapter holds all the details.

 _Disclaimers:_

\- Yes, the trail of arrows was stolen, er, borrowed from one scene in _Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain._ Sofimon is a little too nice to actively subdue and kidnap her superior officer. Even with good intentions.

 _-_ Sofimon is in fact Brazilian, and a definite bookworm who enjoys looking up obscure facts.

\- In the game, Valkyon has never been called 'the Sword Test Mannequin' (though he might have other nicknames we don't know about yet). In fact, as of Episode 17, he's confirmed to be very far from a dunce in romance/plain seduction. But this story was written back when the fandom was convinced he was a bona fide cyborg with a pure heart and a dangerously-literal mind. Let's roll with that for now.

\- Naiads are definitely seen as sex symbols in ancient Greek myth, both pursuing and being pursued by a gamut of deities, sub-deities, and heroes. In this story, I decided to keep that element of the myth.


	3. Chapter 3: The Soldier

**Chapter 3: The Soldier**

The hot spring lapped at the stone in tongues of lead and fire as Sofimon pulled them to a stop on the penultimate step of the stairs. And with the smile of a satisfied woman, she gently pressed Valkyon back against the wall.

He blinked once in surprise, but said nothing, offered no resistance as her hands swept the ends of his long, ivory hair from his shoulders, then traced him by the hard curves of his upper arms, the shape of his pectorals, the ridges of his ribs and stomach that shuddered under the sweep of her questing fingers. His amber-bright eyes continued to watch her, opened wide and deep.

It was the look, Sofimon realized in a heartbeat, of a not-entirely innocent young man who spent years promoting a different face entirely. Not from reserve per se, but from shyness. From an ironclad skepticism in the idea that there were those who wanted him deeply. It was safer to assume otherwise than to hope.

Her hands swept up again to the buckle of his short cuirass, snapped it open with a low click to part his doubts and that jagged sheaf of black leather saddling his skin. And when her palms slipped inside, cupping the stiff, velvety buds of his nipples, the bass weight of his breath drew taut in his chest. Valkyon swallowed, the muscles of his bronzed throat rolling in the deep shadows thrown up from her lantern at their feet. His great hands finally came up, caught her by her elbows.

"This isn't necessary," he breathed, his voice reduced to a low husk. "It'll be faster if I take care of my own clothes."

Sofimon glanced down at his grip, reduced to no more than a gentle pressure around her arms, then up at the wire-tautness of his biceps. And she smiled at him. "Maybe I'll take a while," she admitted, with a light chuckle. Her forefinger traced the line of his breastbone. "But after all this time, I _want_ to learn how to buckle you out of all that armor."

His answer was short and concise. "…Ah," he remarked slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. Even as blush began to darken the skin of his neck, marching up past the angles of his jaw. His callused, square-tipped fingers uncurled and fell away. And Sofimon cupped the side of his jaw, pressing a slow kiss on the pulse on his neck as it leapt and shuddered under her lips. Then another one, butterfly-soft, in the dip of his collarbone, as she fully pulled his cuirass apart and pressed her nakedness against the furnace warmth of his body, relishing the weight of his arms as they finally, shyly, folded around her.

"I'm sorry though for not leaving any clothes for _you_ to work with," she joked from the hollow of his neck, rising to the balls of her feet. Teasing him with the roll of her navel and the tautness of her nipples brushing against his skin, an answering warmth blooming through her breasts.

Valkyon kept his stillness. Then he raised one hand from the small of her back, and with militant deliberateness, plucked the last violets out of her damp hair. And with equal precision, he flicked them one-by-one into the white-flecked stream that coursed behind her, beginning its long tumble down to the ravine floor.

Her laughter finally brought his smile to the surface.

In the murky light of dusk, with sooty clouds chasing the last of the cinnabar sunlight west, Sofimon slowly eased her captain out of his armor. Operating partly by touch, partly by the cues from his hands and the obliging shifts of his body, she unbuckled pauldron and couter, cuisse and greaves, dropped his heavy cuirass onto the stones and stripped his scuffed black vambraces from his forearms, slipped his feet out of their steel-plated boots and pressed a kiss into the inside of his muscular thigh that sparked another low shudder from his core, his knees tensing, his strong fingers curling deep into the wet mane of her hair that pulled an answering sigh from her.

Emboldened, she half-rose from her knees, pressing delicate kisses up the firm valley of his navel as her hands skimmed the backs of his thighs, cupping the firmness of his buttocks through his trousers, her eyes never once leaving his. And she couldn't resist smiling as a fresh wave of flush spilled down from his neck to the base of his navel. Those steady, sun-touched eyes for the first time flicked away from her and closed as his thighs and hips shivered, thrust forward to her, the hard bulge of his arousal already growing as the softest of groans escaped his chest.

Valkyon may not bat an eyelid on walking in on a naked woman in a hot-spring. Or vice versa. But at being touched sensually, at being undressed not in a utilitarian way but with love, at being spoiled, the hardened commander's shell fell away from him. And she could see the boy that he once was, long ago.

Now who could blame her for wanting to know what he was like, back when he first knew a woman? At this point, any finger-wagging from above would just be cruel.

The chain clasps of his belt rattled free in surrender, clattering and skittering down the steps almost to the water. Her mouth pulled his lips open, and filled them as the shadow's breadth of air between snapped with the sound of the last buttons of his trousers giving way. The broad span of his hands cupped the back of her head, held her there and adored her even as Sofimon pushed the hem of his pants down, just enough for her to fold her questing fingers around the thickness of his manhood. And she slid his hard shaft through the tight curve of her palm still moist with spring water. Pumping him until his muffled groan shivered hard through him and into her like a plucked bass string, his body curling forward, knees seizing, arms descending to clench tight around her with a ferocious hunger that made dampness spring fresh between her legs.

Only then did she pull away, and only just. "Why don't you follow me down to where we could be a little more comfortable?" she whispered against his mouth, softening the stroke of her hand into a feather-light caress up the length of his turgid manhood.

"Lead the way," came his answer, his breath gusting hot against the skin of her cheek, his eyes opening again by a crack, now dark with want.

His trousers and smallclothes joined the pieces of his armor, lying at ease across the basalt steps. The ewer swung into her hand, the ball of soap inside rolling faintly to the cadence of her laughter as she took him by his hand and guided him into the spring. Like an approving audience, the hidden naiad she found on the mural flashed through her mind, arching eagerly from the riverbed for her sleepy-eyed youth on the bank.

Sofimon was still grinning as she re-entered the spring, walking backwards into the intense, welcome warmth that slipped up around her thighs and hips, when Valkyon's hand snagged in hers. His thighs clenched once, knees bending by a fraction of an inch as he sank one leg into the roiling heat of the captured stream and stopped. Her grin faded; she wondered for a beat if the water might be a touch too warm for his taste. But even as that thought surfaced, the tension suddenly spilled from him in an easy, voiceless sigh. The wire-tautness in his arms dissolved joint-by-joint; his broad hand in hers slackened. And the last of her concerns were banished with his telltale glimmer of a smile as he stepped off the stairs to join her in the spring, wading boldly into the simmering, iron-laced waters that closed around his waist.

He was still smiling as his arms curled into place around her waist. "You might have a point in choosing to skip catalogue work for this place," he remarked, coppery skin now flushed bright in the lamplight.

"I was _not_ skipping work!" Sofimon retorted automatically. The image of Kero alone at their campsite flashed guiltily through her mind's eye; she slapped her captain's chest with spring water. "The painting of the pool is there in my satchel if you really want to see it, _sir_. You were the one who took your sweet time to get here."

"Never walk into a trap unprepared. That's my motto." He was grinning now.

More distractions, it seemed. In answer, she smoothed out her scowl, propped her ewer on top of the bench behind him, and snaked her arms around the broad span of his shoulders. Her smile silenced him. "Now when have I ever ensnared you in something you didn't enjoy in the end?" she asked, mildly. "I'm hurt when you say you don't trust me."

And fast as a fish in the current, she leapt out of the spring, her thighs snapping tight around his waist, her sex pressed flush against the skin of his navel as her lips sealed his mouth shut against his dry quips. Valkyon staggered once, then held his ground, taking her weight in powerful arms that locked determinedly below the curves of her thighs and buttocks, the sound of his surprise muffled, and then dissolved into a low moan as her mouth and the roll of her sex against him worked him breathless.

Her lips were slick from the taste of him when she let him surface, pushing his damp hair back from his ears and temples. She cupped his flushed face in her hands as she pecked him one more time, soft and chaste, on the mouth. Like an apology. "Let's assume, for tonight, that you are in entirely-safe hands. That I _want_ to treat you. Would you sit down then, and let me prove it?"

"If you like," he breathed, succinct as ever. But there was a new glow in his eyes; a new warmth in the timber of his voice and in the certainty of his hands braced under her thighs as he slowly sank into the submerged bench, pulling her onto his lap.

Sofimon would be lying if she said that she hadn't imagined bathing him before. Many times. It was just her luck that she had a captain who—at the end of each intensive spar under the midmorning sun—liked to strip to his waist and upend a bucket of cold well water over himself, dusky nipples rising erect as chill water chased sweat down his skin. Mercifully ignoring her as she stood by on the sparring grounds and imagined that it was _her_ fingers slipping deep into the snowy mane of his hair, slicking water down his neck and over his bronzed skin still aglow from the heat of their exertions.

So tonight, she made sure to take her time. To relish the breadth of his back between her thighs as she maneuvered herself onto the benchtop behind him, his head level to her stomach. To trace the pale nicks standing out against the skin of his shoulders; scars she still didn't know the stories for. To slowly stream warm spring water from the ewer onto the crown of his head, his eyes shielded under the eave of her palm. And when her soap-lathered hands sank deep through the mane of his hair, massaging his scalp in firm, even circles from hairline to temple to dome, tracing the invisible network of pressure points under his skin with fingers slicked with rose oil, she was rewarded with a full sigh that welled up from the depths of his chest. Valkyon sank far into the splay of her thighs, eyes shuddering closed, all tension suddenly uncorked from his spine and spilling out from him. At the sight of his face, at the rich timber of his sigh, Sofimon wrapped her legs tighter around him, the flesh of her inner thighs and her womanhood already warm, pliant, and throbbing with need from the heat of the spring, eager to take in the shape of him.

If she had to guess, this was his first time letting another person wash his hair for him. And judging from his bonelessness now, this wasn't about to be his last.

She curled herself forward to kiss him—upside down– between his eyes, his forehead slicked with lather, the smell of rose oil mellowing out the heavy musk of his hair. Her soap-slicked fingers spiraled slowly down the sides of his face, tracing the pressure points from temple to ear to jaw.

"So… I take it the spring is agreeing with you, Captain?" she asked, teasingly. One finger slipped slyly, for a beat, around the edges of his lush lips. The barest quiver, and they flexed into a smile.

"Maybe this isn't such a bad place to spend the evening," Valkyon concurred lightly. His eyes remained closed, the back of his head lolling against her open thigh.

"Well I'm glad you think so too." Sofimon reached for the sea sponge, lathered it into a pale cherry foam, and traced it around the valley of his neck, down the plane of his chest and abdomen, into the deep nooks under his arms. "Because I couldn't help but think of you when Kero and I stumbled upon this place."

A feather-light kiss against the whorl of his ear, and then she bent far forward, her free hand sliding over the foam slicked along his chest and stomach in the wake of the sponge. Her fingers massaged the lather deeper into his naked skin in firm, teasing circles that spiraled from north to south; the topography of his body- the ridges of rib and fired-bronze muscle, and the stubborn groves of his scars- made plain to every slick sweep of her hand.

"And why is that?" he asked softly, his eyes still closed, his whisper by her ear just barely coiled with need as she mapped the contours of his torso. His back arched up, the length of his body stretching to give her hand more purchase below; his hand closed possessively around her knee.

"Because I've been searching high and low for months for the perfect place to see you like this." Her free hand dipped lower still, kneading the firm flesh of his abdomen below his navel, just as her sponge swept up again, its stiff whorls delicately tracing around the mocha-dark ring of his nipple.

The effect was electric: Valkyon's back curled tight into the splay of her thighs, muscles tensing, a hoarse gasp escaping halfway from his lips, then breaking in two when his mouth sealed shut again. Just below the water darkened with dusk, the head of his arousal rose, long and defiant. The ocher-tinged knuckles of his hand braced hard over her knee.

Between her giggles, she peppered the side of his jaw with quick kisses a shadow's breadth apart, holding him close and soothing him until that bright spasm of desire simmered down to a new glow in his skin. "Granted… any place will do if I can see you arch like _that._ But, call me impractical if you like, I want to know you in a place that's… more memorable than the showers in the barracks. Somewhere far away from home and the mission roster that runs our lives; a hidden nook in this world that only we can know, and which won't vacate our memories for a very long time afterwards. In short, I want this to be a moment that can never be replaced. About as much as that moment when I first ran into you. Literally."

"…I see." His gold-gilt eyes were wide awake when they found hers again. And then his free hand rose, dripping from the spring. With careful, painstaking purpose, he pushed back the loose locks of her hair, and cradled the back of her head inside the warm cup of his palm. His mouth parted, lingered in silence for a long moment, and then twitched along both sides by fractions of an inch. And held there. His gaze never so much as flickered from hers. "…If I made your period of service over the past year awkward, Sofi, then I apologize."

And here, perhaps, was the purpose to her year-long quest. If she hadn't worked at him patiently for this long, if she hadn't studied him, and learnt to read the nuances in the lines of his smile, in the flicker of those sun-flecked eyes, in the rhythm rolling under the words he chose and the movements he made, then she would have missed what he meant to say right now. And perhaps would have written it off as another of his trademark pithy quips. Or a very literal apology.

It just wasn't Valkyon's way to say out-loud "I love you as well". One had to search for it in the subtleties.

"'Awkward' is the last word I'd use to describe it, _meu amor_ ," Sofimon answered. And she bent herself lower to meet his mouth, upside-down.

His arms opened to welcome her as she finally slipped off the benchtop to straddle his lap, bundling her flush against his chest still slippery with suds, his head bowing—almost reverent– to taste her breasts for the first time. Once again, her fingers delved deep into his hair in answer, slicking back the rosy lather to keep it from slipping into his eyes, cradling his head in her hands as he ministered to her as a woman.

Her little cries punctuated the deepening twilight at every hungry knead of his mouth over the buds of her breasts, every warm, liquid swirl of his tongue around her nipples throbbing with fire, every tender print of his lips against the curves and the valley of her breasts until she could bear his ministrations no longer, and pulled him up again to catch those full, perilous lips in hers. The water lapped high around her breasts as she ground deeper still into his lap, ensnaring his waist in the fold of her thighs, the solid girth of his member a tantalizing firmness against the lips of her sex as she rocked herself in bold, curving thrusts over the shape of his manhood, teasing the nub of her clit.

Like a musician meeting his instrument, Valkyon's broad hands played across the curve of her back: sweeping firm down the line of her spine, pressing into the triangle of her tailbone, cupping and kneading her deep in the curve of her buttocks; once again finding all those sweet spots in her flesh that made her arc and shiver anew from her core, her moist breath shuddering his name against the skin of his mouth, her skin slipping enticingly against his chest smoothed with lather and foam. And it was only when her eyes shivered open again that she noticed the sly tilt to his little smile: a confession that maybe, just maybe, he _knew_ how much she enjoyed his post-spar massages even then.

Well, well. Tonight was a night made for surprises.

Sofimon laughed at his cheekiness, her clit still pulsing to a beat that left her breathless, and cupped his chin in her hands, drawing him forward into the lightest of kisses. Her mouth barely closed over the plumpness of his bottom lip before she drew away, watching him blink twice in confusion before her next kiss alighted whisper-soft on the corner of his lantern jaw, and trailed up inch-by-inch to his ear until a low laugh finally broke through him, lighting the chambers of her chest.

He was still lolling back, eyes closed in the gentle, cloud-light haze her mouth left him in, anticipating more, when Sofimon reached for the cake of soap behind him, pinched off a sliver that curled in her fingers like a waxen rose petal, and ducked it underwater between his legs. And she lathered the length of his member in fast, vigorous strokes that made his knees jerk below her, his tawny eyes snatching open in surprise, his hands squeezing her buttocks hard as his manhood swelled to full attention in her hands, and the deepest groan yet broke full from his lips, the mere sound of his arousal springing an answering wetness between her legs.

Passion rolled in feverish embers through her belly as she fused her lips to the underside of his jaw, then broke off to trail hard kisses down the length of his muscular neck, catching the thunder of his pulse and echoing his name in between each print of her mouth. Her lover's hands engulfed her hips, holding on for all that was dear as her knees dug into the bench, and she rose, and her hand finally guided him inside.

His thickness caught her breath, sending a long shudder reverberating through her stomach, rolling her shoulders forward into the tight fold of his arms and anchoring her trembling mouth to the thick, timpani beat of his pulse once again as his slicked sex stretched the walls of her womanhood wide; a sweet ache that turned her bones translucent. The night thinned into a sharp tremor that filled an immeasurable stretch of time, the heat of his breath mixing with hers, the strength of his hands guiding her hips home, until she felt herself sinking down to his hilt. And then the cinder-burn through her bones fell away, melting into a deep, lambent pleasure that lit every pore of her skin as his length and fullness opened up her depths. Her thighs and clit quivered over the taut space where they were joined as she folded herself deeper into his embrace, tensions spent, his breath mixing hot into her hair as the last rumble of his groan thrummed through his chest and into hers.

They had only just begun, but she groaned his name anyhow into the skin of his throat, fingernails biting into his broad shoulders. Valkyon answered with his lips plotting her hairline and the curves of her eyebrows, his words breathless: "…Are you all right, Sofi?"

" _What_ a question…" She folded her arms tighter around his shoulders, her eyes still seared shut from his entrance, and peppered the moist skin around his lips with the shape of her smile as she rocked slowly on top of him. Her thighs hooked high around the breadth of his chest, parting herself further for his member to thrust slow, careful, and sweet into her, shuddering her breath with every atom's breadth of movement. The scant air between them filled with the sweet, pillowy murk of crushed rose, the heat of his breath, the tang of iron and steam from the water as his hands braced her hips and the small of her back to follow the rhythm of her passion.

Around and in-between, the spring splashed coyly to their rhythm, its heat second only to the searing warmth of him driving into her core millimeter by millimeter, then centimeter by centimeter, and longer still as the walls of her womanhood pulsed and slicked wetter with need around his firmness, and her groans stretched longer, welcoming him to plunge deeper, emboldening him. The first sparks of pleasure deep in her core thickened into a split-instant golden storm each time his hands pressed into the curves of her buttocks, each time they glided quick up and down the arch of her back, each time he breathed the double-syllable of her name into the pulse on her neck as they rocked together- her body splayed open to catch the rhythmic rising of his sex, then folding forward to sink him deeper still into her being.

And when Valkyon's furthest thrust yet suddenly struck that sweet spot inside her, seizing her back into an electric arc and shocking her eyes wide open, his name on her lips, she finally met his gaze again, and realized he hadn't once closed his eyes. He had been watching her from the moment she crested the first waves of pain-tinged-pleasure: studying her, savoring every spasm of pleasure that crossed her expression, with that patient, painstaking, open attention that was unmistakably _him._

Warmth burst sudden through her breast and her mouth reached for his with new hunger. Catching his lips as her legs uncurled against the enameled bench and propelled her up along his shaft, then driving her down again just as his hips rolled forward, their passions meeting in an incandescent burst inside her that made her cry out against his lips and clench tight around him. But she didn't close her eyes this time.

Instead she held that golden gaze in hers as her hips bucked double-pace into his lap, spearing herself breathless, her hands raking deep into the moist tangle of his hair. She held on even as he braced her hips inside those great hands and lent her his strength, bouncing her over the spread of his thighs, thrusting up to her in ever-faster strokes that pierced bright through her being. His pupils dilated in the half-dark just a breath away from hers as each pulse-quick thrust from him sparked and collected an electric tremor through every one of her limbs, through every fiber in her spine, jerking and contorting her with pleasure inside the cradle of his body.

And when her hips curled deep against him, thighs locking hard around his chest and quivering in the advent of a storm, Sofimon's hands clenched tight through his hair, pulled helplessly as the first wave of her release broke over her. And with a thunderous groan that shook him from throat to navel, Valkyon answered by seizing her thighs around him and rising explosively from the water. Bearing them both out of the spring to thrust full into her with tempest-fast snaps of his hips that jolted her in midair, casting her up between earth and sky and water, then catching her with an ecstatic gasp upon his spear over and again, until each brilliant jolt of light lancing through her bled together into a constant white that crashed in a tumult over her senses and broke the barriers of her being, wiping out even those searing amber eyes from her vision as the world around them split silent once more into the formless blaze of creation.

* * *

...By the way, it's not over yet. One more chapter awaits, with more discoveries- and consequences- for these two lovers.


	4. Chapter 4: The Hero

**Chapter 4: The Hero**

The ceaseless rush of the cataracts above and below was what brought them both back to the present: the sounds, smells, and shapes of the twilit mountain spring slowly resolving through the dark. All but boneless from her climax, her skin lit alive with flush and a depth of pleasure that she hadn't felt in years, Sofimon continued to cling onto her lover and silently thanked the spirit of the missing naiad queen, or whatever led her to this hidden spring and smiled on them tonight.

Lips curling into her own smile, she nestled her cheek into the hollow of Valkyon's neck—damp with the fresh musk of his sweat and the last, defiant hints of rose oil–, and closed her eyes again to feel him. The throb of his sex embedded far inside her. The pulse beating through the palms of his powerful hands as they cupped the flesh of the backs of her thighs. The deep, furnace-warm bellows of his chest rising and falling against hers, as he too fought to regain his breath.

Somehow, he still refused to set her down.

After another moment, Sofimon raised her head and pressed a slow kiss to the bottom of his chin, her voice mellowed to a sigh from the force of her climax. "Believe me when I say that this is one night I definitely won't forget, Valk..." Her eyes then pinched, admonishing. "But the last thing I want to remember is you falling over from exhaustion. So please, for my sake and yours, be kind to yourself and sit down."

"And believe me, Sofi: I've been through much worse than this," came his reply, with a smile that she couldn't quite make out under the deepening violet roof of the sky. But the glint of his eyes said enough, pulling an answering giggle from her as he took another step back and deposited them back onto the enameled bench with barely a grunt, her legs still twined around his middle, bodies locked together. Only then did his features return to light, under the wan beam of her lantern perched faithfully on the final step of the pool. And she was, despite herself, a touch surprised at what she saw.

Not once in a full year of serving in the Obsidian Guard, after seeing her captain through all conceivable stages of peace, success, crisis, and day-to-day befuddlement that came with serving at the frontlines of El, had she seen a smile like the one he was wearing now.

It was fair to say that he looked like a different man. Someone whom she was even more inclined to lure away into a torrid tryst in a mountain spring. Or two. Just to see him again.

He didn't object whatsoever as she pulled him into another kiss, teasing apart his lips to taste him long and deep. Her hips tilted flush against him in wordless instinct, rocking in short, curving thrusts into his thighs to plunge him through her depths again, his member already stiffening with want only moments after his explosive finish. His hands rose to cup her face, held it, then descended, patiently skimming the sides of her breasts and stomach as she swayed in his lap, sly thumbs sweeping around the hardening buds of her nipples, drawing equal parts laughter and languorous sigh from her once she broke free from his mouth.

But when she turned her lips to tease the skin of his collarbone, muffling her groan from the pressure of his answering thrusts, from the slew of sensations warming her body once again from the core of her womanhood to the pores of her skin, Valkyon suddenly stopped short, hands frozen far down below the curves of her buttocks. His breath stiffened, and not in a way that boded well.

"What's the matter?"

His voice when it returned was quiet, and drier than a skull in a desert. "…I think we will be expecting company very soon. Listen."

Sofimon raised her head, her pulse spiking in her throat, and focused on the faint trills peaking across the indigo-washed mountain beyond the crash of the cataracts. And her ears picked up, not far enough above them, an arrhythmic solo of wheezes, mutters, and faint curses that scraped above the night's orchestra like a rat in the rafters.

Slowly, she cupped her hand over her mouth, took a breath, and swore. Quick and vigorous.

"I suppose we should have expected this, given the hour. Though if you had been plainer about what you wanted tonight, I would have erased the chalk markers on my way up here." There was no condemnation in Valkyon's voice. Just fact.

"It was a _surprise_ I meant to give you, not another chore…." she answered from behind her hand, not daring to speak above a muffled whisper. But there was a corner of her mind that already voiced the same observation, and was busy kicking the rest of her thoughts as they churned fast on how to ward off the last, neglected member of their party. Who was, according to Ykhar's missive, also the technical leader of this expedition.

On a good day, she could strap on her lightest field gear—sans armor– in just under two minutes. Valkyon could take even less, once again ignoring his light armor. Kero, unless he met with a timely accident in the next few seconds, was likely to poke his well-meaning head over the promenade in less than half a minute. And see more of his two colleagues than any of them were professionally obliged to.

 _Why_ did she have to leave Cereja back at the camp tonight? A motivated Jeanylotte, even juvenile, could wreak some helpful havoc for an overly-curious unicorn.

Sofimon's eyes fell on their lanterns, sitting one step above the other along the stairs to the naiad queen's pool; one of them was fast losing its fight against nightfall, fading into the shadow of the wall. Quick as a flash, she pressed one finger against Valkyon's lips, urging him to silence as she slipped off the warmth of his lap, her body promptly sending up a burst of protest from her core at parting from him. But there was one man arriving within moments that she had no intention of luring into the water with her feminine wiles. Sacrifices had to be made.

The rush of the cataracts drowned out the splash of her passage out of the water and up the steps to douse both lamps, snatching up the neat bundle of her clothes. Her feet nimbly dodged the scattered pieces of Valkyon's armor, and slipped back into the pool just as the patch of sky above the promenade flashed a paler violet, and Kero's thin voice ricocheted down the rock face.

"Valkyon…? Are you there? Sofi…? Is _anyone_ here? For all the bloody teeth of the Black Dog, I swear… …"

She barely had time to mouth an apology against Valkyon's ear as she took a breath and ducked herself into her last refuge.

It took a moment for Sofimon, crouched nearly flat at the bottom corner of the darkened pool, to realize that her lover-cum-captain wasn't joining her under the lifesaving cloak of the spring waters, now dyed black and spangled with night. That he was, in fact, standing up from the bench, exposed for all the world to see from the waist up.

She sent an emergency squeeze through his fingers; he didn't so much as stir. And she realized that he wasn't adjusting his altitude out of confusion… but will.

It wasn't as if she could blame him for that, what with the evidence still left on the stairs. Her expression crumpled into an unseen wince as she let his fingers slip out of hers. One of these days, she would understand how he did it: to regard the body as a mere vessel, and stand stark naked before stranger, friend, and lover alike, without so much as batting an eyelid.

She felt rather than saw his legs cut crosswise through the thick rush of the current. On passing, his fingers dipped once—lightly, reassuringly—to brush her shoulder under the opaque wavelets, before withdrawing again.

Above the grouse and grumble of water, a violent clatter rent the air; the sound of a pantry shelf spilling pot, kettle, and skillet down a flight of stairs. More swearing, the outlines of the words muffled under the rush of water.

"Sorry. I meant to put those away," came Valkyon's voice by her. Drier than the pampas in high summer.

"Did you forget to light your lantern too?" Even from where she was, Sofimon could hear the atypical acid bubbling through the Head Archivist's voice. He _must_ be footsore by now. A new, hazy light wavered pale through the chop of wavelets.

No reaction from her captain. "It blew out when I wasn't looking, apparently. The spare too."

" _Right…."_ A loud sigh."Valkyon, what are you even doing up here at this time? You know that I hate to crack the whip, but we do have a schedule to maintain for this expedition, or else Miiko will have my neck. So I was really hoping we could get the passage blocked up by tonight, at least…" A pause. "And where's Sofi?" There was a strange edge under his question that made said woman wince again underwater, knees pinching together, forearms clutching the bundle of her clothes swaying in the current over her bare breasts. Her lungs pricked with impatience.

"I figured I could use a soak before we set off tomorrow, and Sofi recommended this pool," Valkyon answered, nonchalant. "Or so I assumed from the chalk markers. Don't worry; the passage will be sealed by tonight."

"That's good to hea– wait. So… she _was_ the one who chalked out the path here?"

"A little circuitous; I thought so too." Sofimon was absolutely certain he was smiling right now. _Well._ This was the last time she arranged a sexy scavenger hunt for him. "But the destination was more than worth the trip." On second thought…

"Well… where is she now? She never returned to camp, and…" An uneasy note slipped into the unicorn's voice, like a drop of ink into the water. "…She isn't still around here, is she?"

A bubble of panic lodged in her throat. Pressed against her bare back, a pair of naiads copulated blithely on the lower strata of the pool's mural, legs scissoring shameless in the dark.

"If you want, I could help you look for her." Her heart dropped to her stomach, freezing her to the bottom of the pool with fire-pricked lungs as the surface of the captured spring broke, swirled, and gushed in the wake of with her captain's exit–

"No. _No! Holy_ _Black Dog_ , I—! No, d-don't let me bother you...! I- we'll look for her tomorrow. I'll see _you_ tomorrow. All right? Good night; enjoy your—whatever this is. Good night. _Good grief…!_ "

The hazy moonlet of Kero's lamp whisked out of the horizon of the pool. But Sofimon waited underwater until she felt the roiling currents shift with Valkyon's re-entry, And when his hands found hers again, she popped out of the spring like a cork into the waiting span of his arms. New air seared her lungs; her forehead fell automatically against his chest, as relief and amusement, embarrassment and pinprick anxiety emptied from her in a cascade of wheezing laughs. He simply waited, holding her steady, the air around him laced with his peculiar, unspoken brand of triumph.

"…Don't get me wrong, Valkyon. I'm grateful for what you did, but… you sure have a strange sense of humor." She shook her head, still laughing, and stepped back to wring her sodden field gear dry. After two tries, she gave up, slapping the dripping bundle over one shoulder and pushing her damp hair out of her eyes. "The trek back to El is going be unbelievably awkward after all this. Poor Kero…"

"He'll survive," came her captain's droll response. "There are worse things to see in this world." His arms closed warm around her once again, pulling her against his nakedness; the print of his mouth lingered against her forehead as his voice dipped lower still. "And besides… I suspect that what we have is a department secret with a short life expectancy. Not that I mind, in the end."

At that, she couldn't help but glance at him. In the faint wash of starlight that found them, she was just able to pick out the crease softening the corners of his eyes, the open tilt of his smile. And the last dregs of worry sluiced out of her.

Maybe when they return to El, she would ask him out again the old-fashioned way. For a simpler appointment in her room, perhaps. Well into their off-duty hours, just in case they exceeded their schedule for the night again.

Sofimon rose to the balls of her feet, cupped her lover's chin to kiss him on the corner of that gentle smile.

"Now that's a relief… because this is one _unbareable_ mess that I landed us in. I promise: no more clandestine trysts on missions. I can't imagine any date that will top this night anyway, in success or disaster."

For a moment, Valkyon stared at her; the standard social response to Sofimon cracking a bad pun. Then he flashed her that tiny, sunburst grin once again.

"For what it's worth, I think you've got a knack for _expose-ition._ Though there's nothing wrong with hosting a _stripped-down_ date."

Time and again, it was the little things about Valkyon that confirmed to Sofimon that calling him _amor_ was no mistake.

Those Obsidian ladies in the locker-room could keep their nicknames for him. They didn't have the faintest idea of what they were missing.

His arms promptly received her as she swung herself up out of the hot-spring, thighs locking flush around his waist in a maneuver that already felt so natural between them.

"A promise is a promise," she laughed lightly, her hands twining together behind his neck. "But you _did_ leverage a whole night for us from our poor expedition leader. So… how would you like it if I finish what I offered you this evening? There _are_ a couple more traditional spa treatments I found while reading up on this place. And I'm willing to bet that you'll find them as fascinating as I do."

Under the torrent of stars overhead, emerging to pour their pale, quicksilver light over the forest and the shallow fog of steam and spray that ghosted above the stream, Sofimon caught the soft shape of Valkyon's laughter before he pulled them down again to the water.

 **FIN**

* * *

 _Disclaimers:_

\- Yes, part of the request included Sofimon cracking one bad pun. I threw in two more on Valkyon's end. It's nice to find a soulmate.

\- It's confirmed in the game that Valkyon has nerves of steel and exactly zero shame for walking around naked. (Which may be one reason why he's still keeping that plot armor.) I'd like to imagine he knows how to use both to his advantage, if he really has his back to the wall.

\- This story was loosely-inspired by the Greek myth of Hylas and the Naiad(s), a sub-story from the epic of Jason and the Argonauts: in that episode of the voyage, Herakles' favored companion, servant, and man-at-arms Hylas is abducted by an amorous naiad (or a troop of them) while fetching water for his master, and vanishes for good. One Roman version of the myth adds an optimistic coda in which Hylas appears to a grieving Herakles in a dream, and strongly implies that he's quite happy living with the naiads in their realm under the spring. Three guesses why.

\- The three protagonists in this story were based off the characters from the above myth (of Hylas), and had a chapter titled after them. Sofimon is of course 'The Naiad'; Valkyon takes the role of hapless Hylas, or 'The Soldier'. Which leaves Kero as the long-suffering Herakles, or 'The Hero' who's stuck on an impossible quest, missing his colleagues, and gets thanked about once every blue moon. I'm sorry, Kero. But you're the real victim in this story.

If you've enjoyed this story (and even if you didn't), don't hesitate to leave a review. My inbox is always open for feedback.


End file.
